Windrush Day 2021

Peter Bottomley Excerpts

Thursday 1st July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) on her introduction to this debate, and I hope that the Government will follow up her suggestion and see whether it is possible to retrieve the anchor from HMT Windrush off the coast of Libya. The history of the ship is interesting, but in six minutes I should probably not divert my remarks to that.

The article I was reading before coming to the Chamber is in The Howard Journal of Crime and Justice, vol. 60, no. 2, June 2021, page 251. It is by Anthony Quinn, Nick Hardwick and Rosie Meek, and its rather long title is, “With Age Comes Respect? And for Whom Exactly? A Quantitative Examination of White and BAME Prisoner Experiences of Respect Elicited through HM Inspectorate of Prisons Survey Responses.” It is a serious analysis of the information available. It does not condemn people, but it shows that the experiences of those who are black or minority ethnic are different at all ages in our prisons. I look forward to the time when that is not so.

The overall question I put to myself is this: will I live long enough to know when the colour of my skin will be as important, but no more, than the colour of my eyes or my hair? I count a number of retired bishops among my friends, and I know of eight times that bishops or archbishops have been stopped by the police. Every single one of those times it was John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York. He is now in the other place in his own right, rather than as an ecclesiastical bishop. We must answer our own question: is he the most curious driver there has been on the ecclesiastical Bench over the past 20 years, or does some degree of discrimination still apply to those driving while black?

I have spent a lot of time helping black police officers and doctors—or Asian; I am talking about people who are non-white rather than just black or Caribbean—and all the times I have taken up cases for black or Asian people, I found that they were treated by their employers, by employment tribunals, by the General Medical Council, and at one stage by the Information Commissioner’s Office, in ways that I regarded as inappropriate.

One good woman doctor was looking after diabetes patients. She was concerned about South Asian women being those least likely to come to advice centres. She wanted to set up a self-help project with them, supported by the trust. She sent their details to herself at another NHS address, and then got put in front of the GMC and the ICO for sharing patients’ details. She was doing what is now common practice, but 10 or 15 years ago it took the Information Commissioner’s Office a year to discover that she could not have committed an offence, and it took the GMC about the same amount of time. Her trust has never been held to account for the appalling way she was treated. I could go on about Dr Bawa-Garba, the paediatric doctor who was left by herself, and left to swing by the GMC and the courts, until people came together—white and black—to say, “This is unfair. Get it reviewed.” The case was reviewed, and her prosecution ended.

I have previously mentioned in the House the case of the very good Sikh sergeant, now retired, Gurpal Virdi. He spent a week and a half on trial in the Crown court, having allegedly put a collapsible police truncheon up the bottom of a young man in the back of a police van 26 years before. The thing did not happen. The so-called police witness contradicted every statement of fact by the complainant. The complainant forgot that he had been arrested by Gurpal six months later, and another police officer in his company was never interviewed by the Directorate of Professional Standards of the Metropolitan police. When Gurpal complained to the Independent Police Complaints Commission, the case was referred by the commissioner, Dame Cressida Dick—who, by the way, had been a sergeant with Gurpal Virdi in Battersea—to the Directorate of Professional Standards, which said that its own investigation had been all right.

Will the Minister get the Directorate of Professional Standards of the Metropolitan police together with the CPS and the Attorney General’s office, and ask how Gurpal Virdi got prosecuted? Why will they not have a Richard Henriques-type inquiry—even a brief one—to learn the lessons from something that should never have happened?

I grew up—more accurately, my children grew up—in Stockwell in a mixed area, among people, black and white together, in their scout groups, Brownies, schools and confirmation classes. They did well. Many of them did well, whether they were white or black. I ask that we learn the lessons from the people of the Windrush generation, and other parts of the world, who try to bring their children up in a way that means they learn, play, and have the same kind of development as that described by the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) in his report. Give people chances, let them take them, and when we spot unfairness, do not leave it to the victims to sort things out, but decide that we should. If I am white, middle class, and in full-time employment—which I think I am; I cannot class myself as middle aged anymore—it is my responsibility. I hope to go on contributing to these debates until I can answer that question by saying that the colour of skin and place of origin do not matter in this country. It is merit; it is friendliness; and it is mutual support.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

I hope the hon. Gentleman will not look on this as an abuse, but I meant to ask the Minister whether, before the end of the debate or certainly afterwards, he would find the letter sent on 25 May this year at 1.41 pm to MHCLG correspondence by Arthur Torrington who, for 26 years, has run the Windrush Foundation. He has not had a reply. His essential point was to ask whether it was a good idea for the Windrush Foundation to be involved in Windrush Day events in the same way that the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust is involved in Holocaust Memorial Day. The Minister might not be able to respond directly, but I hope that he will respond to Arthur Torrington, who made a number of outstanding points which deserve answers. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way.

[Mr Dhesi]

I have a great deal of respect for the hon. Gentleman. I am glad that his intervention placed that on the record. I sincerely hope that the Minister will acknowledge and cover it in his response.

We owe so much to the Windrush generation and their descendants. They contributed to business, medicine, engineering and science, teaching, nursing, politics, academia, the voluntary sector and the armed services. Who can imagine our public life here in Great Britain without the contributions of Stuart Hall, C. L. R. James, Tessa Sanderson, Zadie Smith, Kelly Holmes, Lenny Henry, Rio Ferdinand and the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), among so many others?

I mentioned the contribution of people of African-Caribbean heritage to our politics, and I want to mention one person in particular: Lydia Simmons, whom I mentioned in my maiden parliamentary speech here in the Chamber and whom I am so fond of, especially given the warmth with which she greets me. Lydia is something of a Slough legend. She was born in Montserrat, came to the UK, and did the sensible thing and joined the Labour party. She was elected to Slough council in 1979. She was a council cabinet member and served until 2007. Lydia Simmons has the honour of being the first black person and the first Afro-Caribbean woman to become a Mayor in England. She has rightly been recognised by Her Majesty the Queen with an OBE.

When we hear the name of Windrush, we reflect on 1,001 stories of fortitude, sacrifice, bravery and service. We give thanks for all those who built communities, served our nation and strengthened our bonds of kinship and friendship with islands across the oceans. However, when we hear the name of Windrush, we also hear different connotations. Instead of gratitude, we think of cruelty; instead of recognition, we think of injustice; instead of service, we think of scandal. The Windrush scandal is a terrible blight on our recent past.

Wendy Williams’s lessons learned review stands as a terrible indictment of the Government’s so-called “hostile environment”. Williams stated that the cruel impact was “foreseeable and avoidable”. The Equalities and Human Rights Commission, the EHRC, said that the Government ignored its duty to equality. Even after Ministers admitted their failings and mistakes, the Windrush compensation scheme is a disaster: of the 11,500 people the Home Office estimates are eligible for compensation, a mere 687 have received their due. Justice delayed is justice denied and, tragically, at least 21 people have died waiting for justice. The need is there and the money is there. What is missing is the political will and the basic efficiency to get the cash into the bank accounts of the people who deserve it.

When the Windrush generation arrived, they were frequently met with hostility and racism. They were denied a fair chance in housing, education and jobs. Those infamous signs in landladies’ windows were used to stoke up division and dire warnings of rivers of blood. Yet that generation proved the racists wrong. They added immeasurably to our national story and continue to do so. They started out in the cities, towns and villages of faraway Caribbean islands, but they proved—through their intellect, determination and sweat—to be the best of British. We honour them today and in their names we demand long overdue racial justice and equality for all.